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Ditching Medium

joshjahans.com

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Re: Ditching Medium

#81

Post by jlebar »

tehjoker wrote: post #67

Hosting blogs is cheap and everyone should be able to have one. However, if we leave it to the corporate sector, they'll either need a subscription or ads, neither of which are conducive to public discussion. Since serving blogs is so cheap, why doesn't the government offer a free service where you can host a text website? Kind of like a university webpage for all students, but for everyone? You would then have a fin…

I host my (static site, very-low-traffic) blog with nearlyfreespeech.net for less than $10/yr. My hosting costs are less than domain-registration costs.

Highly recommended, I've had zero problems with them.

Re: Ditching Medium

#82

Post by slowmovintarget »

tehjoker wrote: post #67

Hosting blogs is cheap and everyone should be able to have one. However, if we leave it to the corporate sector, they'll either need a subscription or ads, neither of which are conducive to public discussion. Since serving blogs is so cheap, why doesn't the government offer a free service where you can host a text website? Kind of like a university webpage for all students, but for everyone? You would then have a fin…

Because it wouldn't be a free service. It would be funded by your money. How mad are you going to get when your money goes to host those views you find repellent?

When the inevitable happens and the content needs to be monitored (can't have government funds used to host things like doxing blog posts, for example), then how much will you pay?

Governments don't hand out free stuff. They take your stuff to pay for it.

Re: Ditching Medium

#83

Post by thatoneuser »

I didn’t even know they were doing a paywall thing. I got into medium last year for a while because it seemed like this perfect place for people in different tech sectors to share wisdom. But not too long and I realized that most of the writers are talking out of their ass and playing the “use strong language so people will believe you” tactic while being wholly absent of meaning.

It’s honestly like reading one of those subreddits where people get to ask and field questions about an industry. You realize pretty quickly that the sub is filled with wannabes (still in college or otherwise) who spend their days fantasizing about what an industry is like while they have literally no experience. They’ve just read the tropes enough times that they can echo “good sounding” advice with no basis in reality.

That’s what medium is to me. A place where people pontificate over things they really don’t know anything about other than reading other online posts.

Re: Ditching Medium

#84

Post by tehjoker »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #82
tehjoker wrote: post #67

Hosting blogs is cheap and everyone should be able to have one. However, if we leave it to the corporate sector, they'll either need a subscription or ads, neither of which are conducive to public discussion. Since serving blogs is so cheap, why doesn't the government offer a free service where you can host a text website? Kind of like a university webpage for all students, but for everyone? You would then have a fin…

Because it wouldn't be a free service. It would be funded by your money. How mad are you going to get when your money goes to host those views you find repellent? When the inevitable happens and the content needs to be monitored (can't have government funds used to host things like doxing blog posts, for example), then how much will you pay? Governments don't hand out free stuff. They take your stuff to pay for it.

Right, of course it's not free, but it would be cheap to provide and a universal good for all US residents. I also don't really mind the taxes they can come from the rich anyway.

So long as the views expressed don't cross the line into violence or ethnic cleansing, I'm in favor of the first amendment. Yes, some manual curation will be necessary, but it's irrelevant to me if society as a whole pays for it or a company. It seems to me a free service for everyone is a better deal that has knock on benefits for public debate.

Re: Ditching Medium

#85

Post by tehjoker »

jlebar wrote: post #81
tehjoker wrote: post #67

Hosting blogs is cheap and everyone should be able to have one. However, if we leave it to the corporate sector, they'll either need a subscription or ads, neither of which are conducive to public discussion. Since serving blogs is so cheap, why doesn't the government offer a free service where you can host a text website? Kind of like a university webpage for all students, but for everyone? You would then have a fin…

I host my (static site, very-low-traffic) blog with nearlyfreespeech.net for less than $10/yr. My hosting costs are less than domain-registration costs. Highly recommended, I've had zero problems with them.

Thanks for the tip.

Re: Ditching Medium

#87

Post by kochikame »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

I developed an aversion to medium well before the paywall went up. Most articles involved a novice doing preliminary research about something they had limited prior experience with, coming up with a toy solution and then lambasting the experts for having not seen said solution. (Granted, my route to Medium was mostly through HN.)

"Three Things That Will Save Apple From Death"

"What Tim Cook Needs To Do Now To Save Apple"

That kind of thing, right? It's so cringey.

Re: Ditching Medium

#88

Post by michaelpinto »

blondin wrote: post #16

slightly off-topic but i hope a UX person from medium would stumble upon this. medium posts have a terrible UX -- for me at least. i tend to set my fonts to be 125%-150% larger. it gives me an easy-to-read feeling on most blogs. especially when fonts are chosen carefully. but this breaks medium blogs so bad i often gave up on many articles. the header usually takes 40% of the viewport height. and there's always a "ge…

a ux designer would tell you to not trust your own experience, but to measure the experience of others.

Re: Ditching Medium

#89

Post by rococode »

technion wrote: post #80
kuhhk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t that destroy your SEO? I was warned 6+ years ago never to do that, but can’t recall the technical reason.

Go back far enough and I remember you would Google a key phrase, and see the first full ten pages being the exact same article, as accordance with some SEO gaming scheme. Google quite reasonably now sees duplicate identical content as an issue, you can use the "canonical" HTML tag can be used to help it see the "real" link where several exist. I don't know what'll happen when there are only two copies of your page, b…

I could imagine Google being smart enough to have some tracking between duplicates. If you include a link to your main blog on Medium perhaps it may understand "pages A and B have the same main content, but A contains an additional link to B so B is probably the true source".

Re: Ditching Medium

#90

Post by tlarkworthy »

kuhhk wrote: post #75
godzillabrennus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you reblog your content on a Medium blog to take advantage of their user base it can be a great tool. Don't use it for a primary blog.

Doesn’t that destroy your SEO? I was warned 6+ years ago never to do that, but can’t recall the technical reason.

Medium annotates your blog as the original so in general it can be a duplicate conyent problem but for Medium specifically they do the right thing so it isn't
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